Robert Nisbet

Political Correspondent

He had one job: to clarify Labour's position on freedom of movement in a series of radio and television interviews.

It didn't go quite as planned, with Jeremy Corbyn ignoring message discipline on his Brexit stance, but supplying a raft of other headlines instead.

He backed a "maximum wage cap", said he would join Southern Rail picketers and still managed to leave lingering doubts as to how the leader would balance access to the single market with free movement.

And while he doesn't want to "sow division" by limiting the numbers of migrants, he wants access to the single market even though that might involve concessions on EU immigration.

Today he hasn't done much to square those circles, but he has burnished his credentials as a free-wheeling, unvarnished left-wing populist.

A senior centre-left Labour politician told me on Monday they were trying to position him as "sort of a Trotsky Trump".

Pronouncements on "obscene" wages and rail nationalisation may appeal to his passionate cadre of core supporters on the Left, but will it resonate in the traditional heartlands or even among the Islington chattering set?

The by-election later this year in the marginal Labour seat of Copeland, Cumbria will be the first test.